fitness time

As attributed, this is a workout from Carrots ‘n Cake. It was posted with what I assume was the drastically understated, possibly even sarcastic comment, “I forgot to time myself, but this workout took me awhile to finish (maybe 20 minutes?) and it left me a tired, sweaty mess. I took multiple breaks during it to catch my breath and let my muscles recover.“ Yeah yeah okay Tina. 20 minutes. “Awhile”. You were “tired” and “sweaty”.

Facts about this workout:

- I just did it and I feel like I’m going to die. Like, in addition to the intensive physical depletion, my mind has just stopped caring. Any envisioning of a future has simply disappeared. I’m too tired to shower, plus I’m afraid I’ll fall down and be too tired to get up and drown.
- My freakishly fit boyfriend also felt like he was going to die. Fortunately, his recovery seems to be complete (approximately 10 minutes after the end of the workout), and his protective instincts have returned. He keeps offering me apples and seems gravely concerned about my well-being despite not having even read the previous comment yet.
- Prior to today, my Burpee record was approximately 26. What is with people being good at Burpees? They are horrible, horrible, awful things. Today I did the full 70… 70 with the understanding that these weren’t Crossfit burpees with the squat and pushup shebang, these were hands down, jump back, jump forward, stand up burpees. They nonetheless took me approximately 17 hours. I stopped (this is true) for two separate water breaks, and noticed the second time I lifted the glass that my hands could not stop shaking.
- The only thing that enables me to get through the 60-second plank is to play “Dangerously in Love”, by Beyonce. I don’t know why it works. I am passing it on in the hopes of helping others accomplish more than they’d ever dreamt they could with the aid of this heartfelt song.
- Prior to today, my Mountain Climber record was approximately 8. Today I did them all, dividing them into roughly 17 sets. In what way do Mountain Climbers resemble climbing a mountain? Mountain climbers resemble climbing a mountain the way a tractor pull resembles pulling a guinea pig in a novelty miniature wagon.
- I did the girly pushups. Lowered myself perhaps (and this is a generous estimate) 1.5 inches. It took me approximately 11 hours. And (I swear) I summoned every morsel of my inner motivational speaker to keep going, intoning, audibly “Steve already did it. You have to do do it too. Also, don’t you want arms like Michelle Obama?”
- We didn’t know what Hollow Rocks are and found a Youtube video demonstrating them. The hell I’m doing that. Toe touch pushups were enough (“Candles”, Steve called ‘em).
- Also Youtube’d Hand Release Pushups. My attempt at doing them was a perfect muscular equivalent of a newborn infant trying to lift their head. I did another plank instead.

In summary, this is a good workout for someone who wants to exercise in their home with no additional equipment. I recommend doing it on what you’re fairly sure is the last day of your life.

fame and glamour

Guys, Grace is really famous.

First, maybe you heard about her in the food section of the Washington Post talking about pickles. And/or, locals, in the Washingtonian talking about home cooking.

If not, then surely, SURELY, maybe you saw her on a little show called CHOPPED?!?!?!?!

Most recently, she was on the FRONT PAGE of the WALL STREET JOURNAL.

Grace is also my friend, which is pretty cool since she was originally my boss (before a management restructuring led to me working for… a somewhat different style of leader… who wasn’t Grace! Why yes, that is a large reason I am no longer where I used to work. Plus also further education). Anyway.

We’d been exchanging Facebook messages for a few weeks and spontaneously on Tuesday (Mardi Gras, as you’ll recall) she said she’d be having some people for dinner and I should pop in. So I arrived to discover that in fact she was hosting for Feastly, the cool supper-club-type-thing she belongs to (about which the WSJ article was written) so there were 12 strangers in her house and she was cooking them a magnificent, multi-course, authentically New Orleans dinner. On a Tuesday. After work. NBD.

Being awkward in social situations (and understandably, given I was expecting to hang with like… her and her roommates and ended up in a crowd of competitive foodies, one of whom referred to “low quality ice cream like Haagen Dazs” which struck me as slightly absurd), I offered to help cook. With whatever.

So Grace gave me some celery to chop. For the guuuuuuuumbo!

Meantime the table was laid (this was only half of it; it seats 12. Also Grace and her roommates live in a truly lovely old rowhouse. It backs into Rock Creek Park and the basement contains an AUTHENTIC bomb shelter. Where they keep canned goods. Home preserved, of course).

Folks imbibed in some Sazerac. I drove there, and then learned Sazeracs tasted like Old Fashioneds (which I am not yet old enough to appreciate. Or something). So turning it down was fairly easy, though it was pretty. Also going out early in the game were unfortunately not very unphotogenic but totally awesomesauce goat cheese crepes. Then poorly photographed entirely due to user error mini muffalettas.

DUDE. Obviously my picture sells them short but I had no idea how amazing muffalettas are. Grace made her own bread which certainly elevated things. And given equal billing was definitely the tapenade-reminiscent shmear the rolls got. The “meat” was hilariously all vegetarian (some of the Feastly folks were) and even that resulted in a… blissful experience. Actually, I don’t know if I’d want a spread that rich with equally rich meat. I went on a long philosophical treatise about this to Steve, at which he laughed uproariously. Saying, “I just don’t like when my lips feel greasy after eating something” is foreign to the guy who eats bacon fat microwaved into improvised pork rinds.

Moving on.

Grace’s roommate and I were both staring more than a little intently at the roux on the back burner (sidebar: can we talk about that cast iron pot?!). Grace’s roommate was also not a fan of crawfish, so opted to try it straight up. I am not quite that hardcore (see above comments re: greasy lips).

 

However, once I stirred in the seafood (continuing to help to avoid socializing), it was a beaut, in taste and looks.

  

For the gumbo, folks had a choice between meaty and veggie. The veg one had tofu and that absurdly good Tofurkey sausage. I’ve had it a couple of times now and it is the best kept secret of vegetarians. Shockingly authentic in taste and texture.

The omnivores enjoyed theirs with shrimp and sausage. Grace is one of those people who knows exactly where meat comes from if she’s going to serve it. Always nice to eat food she’s eaten!

An enjoyable dinner continued, and then out came dessert. DC is generally woefully short on excitement, and it was particularly true this Mardi Gras, which coincided with the State of the Union, a DC “holiday”.

Which is a long way of saying there was no purple sugar to be had, so this cake didn’t have quite the pizzazz it ought to’ve. Grace’s other roommate improvised with the flower, which I thought was clever.

This was a cheesecake with a cookie crust, nomnomnom.

 

After the Feastly people took off, I lounged with Grace watching Chopped (to which she is now an addict; and during which I interrogated her about various proceedings during the show). And we chatted about the ol’ office, and there was a lot of schadenfreude to be had for me. Which was satisfying.

And then though we’d already had cake, we continued to talk about cake and then there was something called the Tunnel of Fudge in Grace’s kitchen so that happened too. VERY fun night.

So that’s Grace. She’s the bees knees, and writes a blog at Goose Eats DC but unfortunately not all that often. Check it out.

To share something exciting that happened in my equally famous and interesting life, I made some split pea soup.

It was GOOD split pea soup, in my defense. Got the Christmas hambone out of the freezer and jacked up that soup right nice.

  

And then there was still soup/meaty morsels on the hambone, so I gave it to the cat, who delicately licked it off for ten minutes, licked her lips for twenty minutes, and drank a lot of water.

Glamorous :)

what I'm diggin'

Other bloggers do "Friday Favorites" posts, so here's my take at one. It is an amusing amalgamation of everything I've thought about this week, some totally unrelated to food.

1. I am a HUGE fan of Too Hottie for that Body- it is such a cute, inspired, positive blog. I'm not particularly preoccupied with weight loss right now, but the nice thing is that you can be on whatever health/fitness/nutrition journey you want and still enjoy her point of view. And get overwhelmed by the cuteness of her groundhog day cupcakes.

2. I made a kick-ass salad last night. The ingredients:

- arugula, lots

- carrots shaved into ribbons with a vegetable peeler

- goat cheese, crumbled

- whole flax seeds

- cinnamon

- olive oil

- apple cider vinegar

SO satisfying! I often find myself eating salads dutifully and grimly in the winter. This one tastes like winter and manages to stick to your ribs, despite consisting of non-starchy vegetables. Nom.

3. I always enjoy learning how other cultures do things. One of my favorite courses in college was the Anthropology of Child-Rearing (or, er, something like that). One of the books we perused for the course was a study on preschools in the upper-income US, lower-income US, China, and Japan. I learned a lot and it made me think about our priorities as a country (as well as some inherent differences in child rearing philosophy and practice based on socioeconomic background). Anyway, in the Washington Post this week, in a similar vein, I found and enjoyed this article on school lunches in Japan. Particularly this line: "Schools in Japan... give children the sort of food they’d get at home, not at a stadium". Also, the children in their little chef's outfits are super adorable.

4. Do you have bum ovaries? I do! Apparently PCOS, polycystic ovaries syndrome, will get a new name, since the current one has nothing to do with the diagnostic criteria. PCOS is one of those "lady problems" that gets almost no news coverage and no one bothers funding research for it. I ask you, how many medications are there for erectile dysfunction? Yet PCOS (or whatever it'll be called now) affects up to 1 in 10 women and no one cares. Baffling. Also, my sister hooked me up to a PCOS website which led me to this PCOS Workbook. I've started it and it's pretty good. I like how it includes emotional as well as physical health. HELLO. Human beings are complex. We have bodies and minds.

5. I found this Time magazine article about guns and a person's instinctual response when their body is under threat fascinating and thought-provoking. In general I am sad and heartsick at the state of political debate in our country. Is it all rooted in our country's adversarial legal system? Did both of the parties decide that their ultimate objective was to beat the other guys, not to actually pass laws?

Anyway, I'm a big believer in science and research and data, with my political science background that's now transitioning to hard science courses preparing to pursue an RD and MPH. It makes me sad when we have a country that seems so vehemently opposed to looking at cause and effect (I'm looking at you, Superstorm Sandy and drought and the hottest July on record and tornados and derechos and so on in 2012 alone).

The science on having a gun in your home is pretty well researched- this op-ed from this morning's Washington Post includes some of that research (yes, that op-ed has a particular political point of view, recognize that if you click on it).  However, the Time article (the original point of this, from which I have veered!) takes the "put more armed guards in schools" argument to its logical point of reference- how do people with weapons react in a crisis like an armed shooter trying to force their way into a school? I thought all of the opinions in it, including those from law enforcement, were interesting. As was the research. As is, as always, our body's fundamentally amazing systems for dealing with fight or flight.

6. This Ode to Joy flashmob made me cry. And that's called PMS, boys and girls.

7. This "cat people" and "dog people" video made me laugh so hard I almost cried (I presume you've already seen it but just to be sure).

8. This book, The Round House by Louise Erdrich made me unable to sleep at night for several days. Good. Intense. Suspenseful. Upsetting. Beautifully imagined and written. Arcadia, by Lauren Groff was another great one I read this month. Both were recommendations from my mom: she's in a book club and vets books for me! So convenient.

9. I have still flossed EVERY DAY IN 2013! Hurray hurray. Now that I have that in the evening routine, I have added taken a daily multivitamin to the morning routine. It's so nice to do something healthful for yourself, earning a pat on the back.

10. Locals, if you need a car guy and your car isn't American, I cannot say enough things about Eurasian Service Center, right by Tyson's. They are where my family has been going forever, so Eddie, the guy behind the counter has known me since I was 8. They'll tell you what you need and do it well and quickly and, perhaps more importantly, they'll tell you what you don't need and thus don't need to pay for. Also, they have comfy leather couches, a Keurig, and WiFi. I had to get my brakes replaced last September and brought my laptop along to study for the GRE. 7 hours later, I told them that they should rename themselves Eurasian Service and Test Prep Center. My scores were great!

Hope everyone is looking forward to a relaxing and enjoyable weekend. Perhaps do a little dancing?

I will leave you with an amusing picture from my friend's wedding.

I'm Cousin Itt in the green dress. Dance like no one is watching, right?

random day trips

Steve and I drove to Annapolis one day. For funsies. We knew that with traffic we’d have to leave either before 2:00 or after 7:00 because guys, this is the DC area, and rush hour is rush five hours.

We opted for a shorter stay and began our time in town by hydrating ourselves at this cute place:

Named:

They had an unexpectedly awesome selection of fresh juices. Not the type of place you would’ve necessarily pegged for it!

I am not really a juice person, except once a year or so I enjoy some carrot juice. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, literally once every year and three months- I vividly remember finishing the GRE in October of 2011, booking it to the nearest establishment with food which turned out to be a cute little natural foods store and deli, downing a carrot juice, and loving the flow of glucose to my brain.

This was delicious, cold, frothy, and served in an adorable stein.

  

The highlight of the trip, as is the highlight of all our trips to Annapolis, was Quiet Waters State Park. On one of our past trips we visited in sunnier weather and rented bikes (Steve also ventured into competitive eating later in the day, which I'll let you see for yourself) No bike rentals in the off season, but it was still wonderful to take in on foot.

You start on meandering paths through serene forest…

        

But the real money shot comes when you reach the water. The river opens out to the Chesapeake Bay and it is always a stunning view. Particularly on this not-particularly-lovely day, actually. Lovely clouds!

And now for something completely different.

Another random day (let the record state these jaunts occurred before Steve and I started class. The luxury of a student schedule, I know. We are now back to being responsible citizens and studying diligently. Minus the time it takes to write blog posts, of course).

Got up, Steve called, wanting to hang out. Though it was a gloomy day… it was decided we’d go to Charlottesville! Yknow, only 2 1/2 hours away. Hah.

I feel like I’ve been to Charlottesville since so many of my favorite bloggers live there.

We were SO ready to eat, and I was delighted to stumble upon the fabulous menu at Eppie’s- I realized Kath had been there!

Love them for their decor.

Like Kath, I ordered the plate of side dishes. Didn’t realize a salad counted as two sides- explains the unexpectedly high price tag and the massiveness of this meal! The thing is, every one of these dishes was UH-MAZING. And I was sharing the meal with Steve, the man who ate everything. So it worked out, in an exceedingly full belly kind of way.

Cream-licious butternut squash bisque; wondrous flavors that made me feel warm on a raw day.

 

Southwest Caesar salad, ordered dutifully for vegetables but savored for the tangy dressing and perfect cherry tomatoes. Nixed the (ridiculously abundant) croutons; not my jam.

Mac and cheese. Forget that quinoa b.s. This is what mac and cheese is supposed to taste like. Smallish portion (use that fork for reference) and didn’t make it halfway through that. Not that that still wasn’t 10,000 or so calories, I’m sure. SO AMAZING. It came recommended by the guy at the counter, and it was ALL HE SAID IT’D BE AND MORE.

And of course the famous cornbread, which is everything Kath said it would be. Oh carbs. Sweet carbs. So many carbs. I love you carbs.

Steve snarfed down the chicken and dumplings special at a speed that would indicate it would also quite tasty. (And then, of course, he had to start working on my food, as I required his assistance).

I mean really. So much. So good! So cheap!

 

We popped into a hippie tea room to warm up even more, then were finally adequately heated to walk around. We strolled around UVA’s beautiful campus, which was nice, even on a gloomy day. Neither Steve nor I had been to C’Ville since we did our respective college admissions visits (though I never bothered to apply, since my cousin’s stories about people wearing pearls to football games and nonstop frat parties made it sound like a great place for her but not so much me).

Best of all, by campus is an outpost of Arch’s, the froyo place so often extolled in the fabulous Smart Kitchen for their famous gooey brownie.

Sarah. Whoa. Gooey brownie is everything you claimed it was and more.

Oh yeah and that’s peanut butter froyo. And uh-mazing.

(Thumbs down for them having styrofoam containers. Thumbs up for the guy working there letting me reappropriate the milkshake cup. Plastic’s better than styrofoam, right?! Agh, consumerism).

Then I went to another blogger favorite, Feast! It has the exclamation point in its name, but I would have added one anyway because Wow! Feast! Is! So! Fun!

I am such a freegan. I would love an all-sample diet.

the blogs I read

I read many many blogs and I have a weird schedule about it.

Some of them I read in Google Reader- but I’m perpetually 3-6 days behind. It’s a little bit deliberate, though- it’s like I’m saving the immediately preceding few days for myself in case I have a boredom emergency and need to read blogs for a long time.

Some of them I prefer just pulling up the site and reading several posts at once, in a little bit of a narrative.

Sometimes I read blogs written by new mothers and pregnant women all at once. I DO NOT WANT TO HAVE A BABY. But I’m having this biological phase right now where I’m completely enthralled by the whole process. BUT DO NOT WANT ONE AT ALL. THIS ISN’T ONE OF THOSE JOKING SARCASTIC THINGS. No offense. It just seems sort of terrible.

And then some blogs, the ones written by my friends, I immediately read each new post as soon as that friend posts it on Facebook. Such is the case with Grace, my former coworker. You may have seen her on Chopped (!) Or read about her in the Wall Street Journal (!!!) She’s getting super famous and I’m sure eventually it’ll be “I used to know Grace…”

In the meantime I read her blog, Goose Eats DC. And make her mac and cheese.

Secret: put goat cheese over the pasta and cheese sauce but under the bread crumbs.

 

The buttery, awesome breadcrumbs. This recipe uses essentially a stick of butter. I made this and immediately froze two thirds of it. For our arteries.

 

Cheers, Grace. This’ll comfort you real fast.

Next blog.

I am a long time reader of Carrots n Cake. I think her pug is annoying but her husband is hot. When she posted pizza with a sweet potato crust, I went OH YEAH. So I used sort of an amalgamation of Tina's paleo-esque sweet potato crust and another one I found that was a more traditional crust.

Basically, an ENORMOUS roasted sweet potato, 2 eggs, an egg white, 2 cups of whole wheat flour, and my seasonings of choice.

Pre-baked it for 25 minutes.

Spread with tomato sauce..

 

Sprinkled with goat cheese…

  

And topped with mushrooms

 

The crust was SHOCKINGLY good! Pleasantly chewy, subtly sweet. Everyone agreed it’d be particularly good with caramelized onions on top. And/or bacon.

I’ve only recently begun reading Smitten Kitchen. I knew her recipes were great, and lately there’ve been a lot published, in honor of her cookbook, which is fabulous. Anyway, in the past I preferred food blogs with a touch of voyeurism- is that bad to admit? I kind of love the people who overshare about their lives?

But the food porn of Smitten Kitchen has converted me. I was particularly intrigued by ethereally smooth hummus because come on! That’s a title that sticks with you.

As she said, the peeling of the chickpeas is not a deal-breaker with the amount of time it takes. I read the paper and did it.

The ensuing texture is indeed good.

The flavor is… not ground breaking. I ate it, and enjoyed it, but might try the technique with a different recipe. Keep fiddling.

At the same time I made that hummus, I was making this:

Since it’s from Gourmet, it has scads of butter (well I 1/3’d’d the recipe, so it had a third of scads of butter). I compromised by half and halfing it with canola oil. Still buttery flavor. Less saturated fat. I had, after all, recently made Grace’s mac and cheese :)

 

It was goo-ood! I made it mainly because we had so much cabbage and wine in our house (classic situation, right? Right?)

 

I smeared hummus on a whole wheat tortilla and stuck it in the toaster oven. It is not terribly attractive. But this was good.

 

Any blogs I am in desperate need of checking out?

Steve’s birthday

One of my favorite people just turned 28!

I was relieved. I never ever want to be 27, nor do I want my loved ones to be it. Did you know that your 27th year is the year the stars realign closest to the position they were in at your birth? It can be a “rebirth”, but that can be PAINFUL. Witness all the people who didn’t make it past 27- Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, my beloved Amy Winehouse. It’s just bad news, that age.

Steve is past it now :) We celebrated with wine!

 

The pre-birthday adventure on which I took Steve was actually a birthday gift to ME from my mom: a Groupon for a wonderful wine tasting excursion at Cobbler Mountain Cellars.

Locals, it’s only an hour from the DC area and just five miles from Route 66. HOWEVER. Driving around the windy roads surrounded by gnarled trees, ringed by mountains, passing through their beautiful property, you really expect a fairy tale character to jump out at any moment. This place gives you the feeling of having been utterly transported!

Then you go up to this beautiful house…

 

And step into their Alice-in-Wonderland-esque tasting room.

If you give me chocolate to taste your wine with, you will be my friend.

All their wine was GREAT, guys.

They’ve got cred:

We ended up opting for the most distinct, multifaceted, thoroughly delicious Chardonnay ever. Who knew Chardonnay could be that? It was like EATING. Can’t even thoroughly explain it.

Though it was cold we camped out by the (unlit) firepit for a bit.

To NOSH! The wine tasting came with a goodie box with bread, various tasty local cheese, and honey.

Then we climbed vertically up a mountain. Pictures did not do this killer trail justice. Suffice it to say it was vertical. My buns felt it for days (though I suppose that’s good).

Then we wandered down the long, rambly driveway and found an adorable picnic area by a stream with a TIRE SWING WHOO!

 

There are not enough tire swings in adult life. Being a grown up is rubbish.

A wonderful, beautiful day.

We stopped at Cracker Barrel on the way back. Steve had never been which is absurd. Their portions were made for him.

Witness:

I got the beans ‘n greens. So good. NOT vegetarian. Definitely not. Doused ‘em in hot sauce.

As for the birthday itself, it was my first day of class, so I was running around semi-maniacally.

We went out for dinner for Indonesian food at Satay Sarinah which is delicious and offers a 14-course meal for my speedy metabolism’d boy, and meant I DIDN’T HAVE TO COOK WHOO. I was beat.

I did contribute something though. Dessert was quick but heavenly- similar to what I made following last year's birthday bacon extravaganza.

Same peanut butter custard (see previous link for details). Not the most attractive thing I’ve ever made, eh? But ohhhh so rich and tasty.

Sliced bananas.

 

And this truly decadent chocolate concoction I made that mostly consisted of melted Sees candy. Thus the occasional nuts. Mm.

 

Layered in a tasty parfait!

 

Happy Birthday Stove!